"Founding Mothers:" White Mothers of Biracial Children in the Multiracial Movement (1979-2000)

Abstract

classification option that permitted multiracial people to check more than one race box on the 2000 census. This option recognized multiraciality by allowing affiliation with multiple existing monoracial groups, rather than designating "Multiracial" as another single identity option. Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally) preferred a standalone "Multiracial" category in addition to monoracial labels; Project RACE's founder and constituents believed having multiracial-specific terminology would help create a distinct multiracial community. 8 Due to the socio-political advantages of formal racial recognition, 9 racial classification became a key objective of the Multiracial Movement. After interracial and multiracial organizations successfully lobbied for multiracial recognition on local school and hospital forms, multiracial recognition on Census 2000 became one of the movement's primary goals. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor claims, "Non or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being." 10 Activists hoped that recognition on Census 2000 would formally legitimize pluralistic multiracial identities as whole and complex, rather than incomplete or confused versions of monoracial identities as they were generally thought of at the time. For example, multiracial children were 8 Graham, Susan. Interview by Alicia Castagno. Telephone interview. November 12, 2011. 9 Some of the potential benefits of official racial recognition include a strong, socially and politically identifiable racial community, race-specific federal policy and benefits (in healthcare and economic aid, for example), and identity legitimization. Only the standalone "Multiracial" option would yield the same advantages for a multiracial population. The "mark one or more" philosophy that AMEA and the federal government ultimately adopted did not have the same potential.